Louise Mandumbwa’s sketchbooks had missing pages.
Growing up in Francistown, Botswana, Mandumbwa often yanked away the sheets she felt lacked the artistry she saw from her father, an art educator. Today, the University of Central Arkansas senior flourishes in her craft — so much so that she’s been featured in several exhibitions and is a Windgate Foundation Scholar.
Mandumbwa landed in the U.S. in 2015 to attend college and joined the UCA campus two years later after earning an associate degree in graphic design from the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College in Little Rock.
The senior painting major focuses on portraiture in her work and experiments with it on materials like plywood, gesso board and Plexiglas.
“I’ve always been interested in human stories and human connection,” she said. “There’s a specific word that we have called ubuntu, and it roughly translates to, ‘I am because you are.’ It’s a humanist principle that suggests that what makes us most human is our ability to empathize and connect with other people.”
In her first semester as a Bear, Mandumbwa was nominated for, and received, a scholarship from the Windgate Foundation, which funds educational programs and scholarships relating to craft and visual arts.
“Having something like the Windgate scholarship to lean back on means that I can make my education my No. 1 priority and really make performing well in all of my classes my No. 1 priority as well,” said Mandumbwa, whose work has been seen in exhibitions at the Hearne Fine Art Gallery in Little Rock and East Arkansas Community College in Forrest City.
With the establishment of UCA’s Windgate Center for Fine and Performing Arts on the horizon — thanks to a $20 million gift from the Windgate Foundation — artists on campus will be able to have better cross-disciplinary collaboration, she said.
“I’ve been on this campus for a little while, and there’s some incredibly talented students who work incredibly hard,” she said. “It’s so wonderful and heartwarming to see that the university is making concerted efforts to show that not only do they see the efforts being made by students, but it is worth an investment. I think it’ll be really exciting.”
After graduation, and ideally after earning a Master of Fine Arts in painting, Mandumbwa hopes to pursue an art practice or graphic design.
As for how her sketchbooks pages are holding up today? “They’re all there,” she said.